SINGAPORE: The US$2 million (S$2. 8 million) analysis grant for the development of drugs that can help fend off pandemics has been granted to a team associated with scientists led by the Lee Kong Chian School of Medication (LKCMedicine) at Nanyang Technological University (NTU).
The competitive grant was awarded under a main research programme in the United States which is aiming to develop antiviral drugs in order to combat viruses that can cause pandemics, like Sars-CoV-2 – which causes COVID-19 – dengue and Zika, NTU said in a declaration on Tuesday (Jul 26).
The research to be carried out by the NTU Singapore team is part of the attempts at the Midwest Antiviral Drug Discovery (AViDD) Center for Pathogens of Pandemic Worry based in the University or college of Minnesota to build up antiviral drugs having a grant by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in the US.
“The Midwest AViDD is one of 9 new national centers newly established from the NIAID, part of the US National Institutes of Health, to perform innovative, multidisciplinary research to develop candidate COVID-19 antivirals, especially those that can be taken in an outpatient setting, in addition to antivirals targeting particular viral families with high potential to cause a pandemic later on, ” said NTU.
The team is brought by Lee Kong Chian School associated with Medicine associate teacher of infection and immunity and provost’s chair in medicine Luo Dahai, a structural virology specialist. Dr Liew Chong Wai from the NTU Institute of Structural Biology is also portion of the team.
“The Singapore team may leverage NTU’s state of the art molecular and structural biology research platform and facility to identify new antiviral drug targets, ” the university said.
The AViDD team collaborating with the NTU scientists is led by Professor Reuben Harris, an detective with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute plus professor and chair at the University associated with Texas Health San Antonio.
The teams will work collectively “to develop small molecule drug applicants, with an aim to take the most promising medication candidates to the clinical research stage”, NTU added.